Spoilers up to the current patch.
I would begin fighting primals and look for my missing friends immediately instead of waiting for the next patch.
It's been months and some of them are still missing!
That's okay, I'll just go gather some ore, make some collectibles for this lady, fight the same dungeons 500 times to get tomestones to give to her instead of looking for my friends.
If there were no restrictions, I would definitely be working harder on looking for the missing Scions and doing more to stop Primals and the Empire.